Released 2024 (Spain)

SUNDAY 19 April 2026 – 10.00 am
TUESDAY 21 April 2026 – 8.15 pm
RUNNING TIME 110 minutes

Synopsis:

This Spanish/Catalan film tells the incredible true story of an act of peaceful dissent and of a grassroots neighbourhood movement that transformed modern Barcelona during the city’s boom in the late 1970s. 

Review: Jen 

Torre Baró is a neighbourhood of shacks on the outskirts of Barcelona, built under very difficult conditions by people from Extremadura and Andalusia.  Over time it has simply become a forgotten neighbourhood.  Repeated requests for running water, reliable electricity, a doctor, and other basic services have been ignored by the state. 

Manolo Vital (Eduard Fernández), a bus driver on line 47 is encouraged by his neighbours to get involved in their fight, and to debunk the City Council’s claims that buses cannot climb the hills in the district. At the end of his tether, one day Manolo decides to hijack his own bus and drive it to his neighbourhood, in an act of defiance. 

The director brings to you a side of Barcelona that maybe unfamiliar to you. Waves of immigration took place in 19^th/20^th century Barcelona and Catalonia when communities expelled from their own homes, fled fascist repression under the dictatorship of Franco.  

Life was not easy for them. Though on the outskirts of the city, trying to build a home from the ground up, under the strict control of the regime police was almost impossible. Each house, including the roof, had to be completed overnight. The police would turn up in the early hours of every morning, and if there was no roof, there was no mercy. The law would knock down the home people had spent all night building. 

Emotional with injections of organic humour, this most watchable film will have you pulling for the people being kept down by insurmountable challenges and prejudice.  

To not have paved streets or basic amenities in the 70’s is not that long ago. And it’s hard to believe that for some, not a lot has changed. Though not on the same scale as the film depicts of 1978/9, the struggle against bureaucratic indifference continues.

A true and sad tale wonderfully told, it’s no surprise it has collected a string of awards.

Source: www.weekendnotes.com  : Jen 31/5/25 ~ Edited extracts. Accessed 14/1/26.